Everyone at one point or another criticizes the person they are in a relationship with, be it a partner, a parent, a child, a co-worker, etc. Sometimes the criticism is verbalized outright, often it is veiled in a sideways comment, and at times it is not spoken but felt.

Criticism, the request for adjustment in behavior from another, is a normal part of life, part of friction we feel dealing with each other and our own individual preferences.

I know this is not the common view. The common view of criticism is that it is offensive, an insult, an affront, an attack. Perhaps it is all those things sometimes, but most often, it is none of those. Let me tell you what criticism, or feedback, or request for change is really about. You might be surprised by what you read below.

What does it mean when one person gives another constructive feedback or criticism or asks for a change in behavior? It often means that person cares enough about the relationship to risk causing a negative reaction in the other. Otherwise why bother asking for change?

In other words, if you are dating person A, or are in a relationship with person A, and he or she is doing something you can’t stand, you have a choice. If you no longer want the relationship, you simply leave. However, if you want the relationship, you will tend to try to accept this thing you can’t stand, and when you find you can’t, you will give constructive feedback, or criticize your partner.

You will do this specifically because you want the relationship, not because you don’t want it!

The key is that we do not give feedback to people we do not want in our lives. We only take the risk to give feedback to the people who we want to keep; who we hope will accommodate our desires, at least somewhat.

And there in lies in part the cause of the current crisis in relationships. The popular belief is that we should be accepted as is in a relationship, that our partner should find us perfect, that no change should be requested of us. If change is requested, most people feel offended and either feel deeply hurt and resentful or simply end the relationship because they do not want to be criticized.

When did we come to believe that we are perfect and that we should be accepted as is? When did we come to believe that when people don’t like something about our behavior and say so, they are being offensive?

We are imperfect. We all have issues, we all do things that are not good for us, not good for those around us. And so when someone cares enough to risk giving us feedback, perhaps we should take that as a sign of caring, of love, rather than being offended. Feedback, because it involves so much risk for the person giving feedback, is an act of courage and caring.

Feedback can be an opportunity for building intimacy, if taken correctly. Feedback shows you that you are being seen. What is reflected to you is imperfect, yes, but you are being seeing by another person, and that is so very powerful and can be so very healing.

How often in life are we truly seen? Perhaps people see the clothing we wear, the persona we project, but not much else. When someone gives feedback, this can be a door to true intimacy, because intimacy begins with seeing each other.

Want the moment of criticism or feedback to be a door for more intimacy and love in your relationship, as opposed to the moment the relationship breaks or ends? Here’s how.

When getting feedback or criticism, open your heart, even thought it may hurt or it may make you feel ashamed that you are not perfect.

Dig deep, look for the reasons you do what you do, share them with the person giving you feedback. Ask him or her what the intent of the criticism or feedback was. Ask him or her what she or he was trying to achieve by verbalizing the feedback. When you hear that he or she wants you, except this one thing needs to change, hear that. And consider perhaps that one thing is something you already think you need to change for yourself? Would your life be better if you changed that thing?

Very often, that is exactly the case. The thing that people ask us to change, especially if the requests are repeated over a series of relationships, are exactly the thing that would serve US to change and grow about ourselves.

And then consider – should you be hurt because someone can see you; because yet another person asks you to change the same thing as many other people have asked for? Or perhaps you could consider being grateful, because you end up with people in your life who care about your enough to ask for an alteration so that they can keep you in their life.

If you can overcome the shame that is triggered by criticism or feedback and instead use the information to improve your life, if you can be open enough to show the person giving feedback that you are wounded by it, but yet are listening, an opening will occur in your relationship as a result.

And in that opening you two will grow in intimacy, in seeing each other deeper. You will grow into feeling closer and safer with each other.

This is a powerful way of being – taking feedback and allowing it to mold you into a better, more open, more flexible person. It’s also a great way to conduct relationships, as you turn potentially relationship-killing situations into opportunities for more closeness.
I will end this by telling you that this is the way I live my life and I love what it does for me and my relationships! I encourage you to give it a try and tell me how it works for you.

In my search to accelerate personal and relationship growth for clients, I have been sampling guided-visualization CDs and MP3s. I have probably tested at least 30 different guided meditation CDs and have finally come up with a list of five that I highly recommend to anyone trying to patch up a difficult relationship or working on attracting “the one.”

Below is a list of the CDs, and coaching on how I suggest you use each one. If you are searching for a way to heal your heart and improve your relationship and love life, I suggest you give these a try. I think you will find them enormously helpful.

1. Guided meditation CD to erase bad memories and rewrite your past: this CD will, over time, help you literally erase bad memories and rewrite your past. I suggest you use this meditation to deal with painful childhood memories that may be affecting your adult relationships. If you are not sure which memories are affecting you or which memories to work on, get this short, self-study e-class to flesh out that information, then go through this guided meditation about 10 times. Use tracks 1 through 4 of this CD for this specific purpose. The combination could literally heal your heart.

2. Guided meditation CD to heal negative self-talk: this CD, when used over time, will heal any negative self-talk or negative views of yourself. The meditation is very subtle, but very powerful, increasing in effect over time.

3. Guided meditation CD to help you overcome negative beliefs: use this CD after you have used the CD’s above and/or if you already know what beliefs hold you back and need to be changed. This meditation will help you seed new, more positive and helpful beliefs deep into your subconscious so that you can see them bloom in your life. New beliefs equal less heartache and more healing.

4. Guided meditation CD to help you grow healthy relationship skills: this CD is great for a person currently experiencing relationship conflict with a partner or ex-partner and wanting to grow healthy relationship skills. Tracks 1 through 4 will help you look at the conflict from different perspectives and come up with alternative ways of interacting with the other person. Tracks 5 through 8 are great at starting to instill healthy relationship behavior that will help you avoid heartache in the future. You will become more relationally intelligent as a result of listening.

5. Guided meditation CD to help you experience your ideal relationship now: I can not say enough about this particular guided mediation CD. It is truly amazing. The guided meditation actually leads you through visualizing and experiencing your healthy, wonderful, ideal relationship. You will experience being transported into the future, where you already have the love you want. This guided meditation is very powerful, very soothing and perfect for practicing the Law of Attraction for your relationship.

In combination, these five guided meditation CDs can be powerful aids for healing your heart and transforming your relationships. I highly recommend them to anyone dealing with relationship issues.

If you find you need support in how to use these meditations to help accelerate your relationship growth, or you would like to be personally guided on how to deeply transform your relationship life so that you can finally have the love you want, I will be glad to support you as your coach.

Are you having a hard time believing that you can have a wonderful, deeply satisfying, loving relationship? Do you think thoughts that make it impossible for you to believe that your dreams of true love will ever come true? Do you wish life was different; people were different, so that you can have the relationship you have always dreamed of?

By now you have been exposed to enough ideas about law of attraction to realize that you should think positively. If I told you it would be a good idea to think that you can and will attract the right partner or that you can get more love in your current relationship, you would agree with me.

But you might ask, as many of my clients do, “How can I think positively, when what I see around me are people who are not a good fit for me? How am I ever going to find the kind of relationship I want? How am I ever going get my partner to turn around his or her behavior and love me the way I want to be loved?”

And I will tell you, the way I tell my clients, that you see what you think – NOT see and then think. Something in your past, likely in your childhood, set you up to think that you can’t have love, or that all men or women are this way or that, or that you don’t ever want to get that close to someone, etc. And those thoughts became the things you see. That is why, when you look around, you only see what you already think. And there’s work to be done on changing your mind. And that that’s the kind of work we can do in coaching. Curious about coaching? See here.

But I will also tell you that you need to start retraining your mind to see the world differently, and learn to see what you want to see. The way to do this is to reprogram your thoughts. You need to flood your mind with as much positive information as you can daily. Listen daily to books and courses on positive thinking, the law of attraction, expending your potential, achieving your dreams! Do you work out, commute, grocery shop, vacuum, do the dishes or laundry, needle point, walk? All of these and any other tasks that use your body but not your mind are a great time to feed yourself positive information. Feed your brain messages of possibility so that you can more easily tune into the love you want.

Here are audios I recommend to my clients to feed their brain:

1. A course on creating the life you want. Here is a very powerful audio program to teach you exactly how to attract what you want. It’s not cheap, but well worth every penny and it tops 12 hours of very powerful audio.

2. Get this unabridged audio CD set to learn the ins and out of law of attraction. It is well worth it, even if you have seen the Secret movie or read the book, because you can’t always read or watch, but you can almost always listen. Listen to this audio about 40 times all the way through before you assume you got the information fully.

3. Get this audio cd set to learn what your emotions mean, how to use them to get the love you want, and use them to tap into the law of attraction.

4. Get this program to help you see what a healthy, vital, deeply loving relationship looks like – so that you know what you are going for – and to learn about some of the ways to get there. This particular program is not cheap, but well worth every penny.

With these four courses/audio books, you will have about 40 hours of super-positive, uplifting, brain-feeding and life-changing information. Listen to something on this list daily, for at least 30 to 60 minutes, or add some of your favorite resources to the list. Do this for a month and notice the difference you start to see in the world around you in terms of whom you see and what you begin to believe is possible. And then keep listening.

Go! And below please share other resources that help you think positively and believe you can attract the love of your life or get more love in your relationship.

What’s wrong with your relationship or with your lack of relationship? How miserable are you about what’s wrong? What if what’s wrong brought you happiness instead of misery? Try this: next time you see something is wrong, say “Hmm, I don’t like that. What I would like instead is ….” Take a good long time to describe what you would like instead and bask in the deliciousness of it. You will feel good.

What we perceive is what we become. Are you sure you see what really is? Question your perceptions. Ask yourself “what else might be going on here to cause this situation?”

Are you afraid?

Ask yourself: Is it happening, or is it something I am afraid might happen because it has happened to me before? This is how you will know whether your fear is founded or unfounded, and whether you should be afraid, back up and protect yourself, of open your heart despite fear and forge forward into a relationship.

If you read Robert Bly and Robert Moore, you will learn that men need to go on a hero’s quest to claim their full masculinity.

These two insightful authors and countless others perceive the problems of men in our society as a lack of opportunity to grow up. There are no longer quests to fulfill. Men are no longer asked to grow in valor and strength of character, and they are no longer asked to mature emotionally.

I believe the current problems of men and women in relationships have something to do with a lack of hero’s journey in men’s lives. Not that women are completely innocent, as you will see as you read this article.

Women think nothing of pursuing men, putting up with bad relationship behavior. Women excuse men for being emotionally distant, physically and emotionally evasive, abusive, workaholic, unskilled relationally and generally hard to be in a love relationship with. Granted, not all men are hard to love, but many are, and many women and families, including men themselves, are suffering because of this and seeking a way to fix their relationship.

One of the things that would help men be more relational and create happier relationships would be to undertake a hero’s journey to intimacy.

Single Man’s Hero Journey

What can you do if you are a single man who’s been unlucky in love?

A single man’s hero journey to intimacy may begin when his relationship falls apart and he finally realizes that he had something to do with yet another relationship failure. He may also undertake his hero’s quest when he finally realizes that he will never meet the right woman unless he does something radically different.

He then will take an inner journey, assisted by great magicians and alchemists – therapists, coaches and support groups – to understand and transfigure his inner dynamics. He will go on a personal quest and find himself inside of himself. This will take time and effort and will cause him suffering. But he will persist, knowing that not changing himself will continue to make love elusive.

He will take his emotional lead and transform it into the gold of love inside of himself. He will grow himself up by learning what emotionally mature men do in relationships. He will learn how to love without losing himself, learn how to stand firm and still be loving, learn how to give generously and yet take care of his own needs, learn how to be passionate and creative while maintaining his maturity.

This is the kind of man most women are seeking nowadays for a relationship partner.

Note to Women: If you are seeking an emotionally mature man, you will want to find out if the man you are about to date has had some sort of hero’s journey that has thought him how to be a mature hero in a relationship.

Married/in a Relationship Man’s Hero Journey

What do you do if you are a man unhappy with your relationship or marriage? What do you do if you are a woman unhappy with your relationship or marriage?

If a man is already in a relationship and struggling, he needs to be encouraged by his partner to take a hero’s journey. Instead of begging and pleading, criticizing and cajoling and putting up with bad behavior, women may want to learn how to be the quest. Women must allow themselves to be won by a man, rather than chasing him or making it easy for him to “get you.”

I know this is an old-fashioned idea, and I am sure that many will be unhappy with the passive role that I am suggesting women take.

Think about it this way: If something is easily attained, especially by a child, it is usually considered of little value and discarded. Consider a child who gets many presents for which he or she did not have to work. If a toy gets broken or lost it’s not a big deal – the child will just pick up another toy.

The men who have not gone on a journey of emotional maturity are children when it comes to relationships. The women who are with them are the toys. If you were easily attained, if you are the one that wants him more, if you are the one who keeps asking for closeness, you will be easily ignored and perhaps discarded.

Men who have not undergone a hero’s journey prior to meeting you must win you in their own personal battle with their own dragons of fear and relationship immaturity.

The prescription for his journey is the same as a single man’s, except with one key difference: Your love and connection with you is the prize at the end of his journey. You are his quest.

The man’s journey must be treacherous and difficult, but not in the way that modern women make men’s journey to intimacy difficult.

Do not criticize him when he doesn’t act the way you want him to. Do not chase him to get him to talk to you. Do not cajole and overwhelm him in order to get him to be close to you. Instead, be the queen in the castle, unattainable until the dragon is slain. Be the queen in a high tower, untouchable and unavailable until he treats you as a hero must treat his queen. Do not come down out of your castle until he has won your heart. Allow him his full journey and allow him to win you, so that he can mature into the relationship hero you and he want him to be.

For specific ideas on how to be the queen who encourage her hero’s journey into himself, read The Rules. This little highly ridiculed, quirky book has an amazing amount wisdom hidden behind its simple cover.

So what does a hero’s quest have to do with men and intimacy? Everything! A man will not be able to have a healthy, mature, loving relationship until he undertakes a hero’s quest into himself and learns how to love. Single men may take up this quest when they fail yet again at love. Men in relationships will take up this quest when the woman in their life becomes the queen in a high tower to be won by going on a hero’s journey.

Are you are a man who’s ready to take your hero’s journey or a woman who’s ready to learn to be the queen who inspires a hero? I would be happy to lead you on your quest. I have coached many men on their hero’s journeys and have taught many women to be the queens who have inspired love. Perhaps you are next. To find out, contact me with your quest.